launch vehiclein spaceflight, rocket system that boosts a spacecraft into Earth orbit or beyond the gravitational dominance of the Earth. A wide variety of launch vehicles have been used to lift payloads ranging from a few pounds to the giant Skylab and Soyuz space stations.

Many of the early launch vehicles were originally developed as intercontinental ballistic missiles, including the Atlas rocket that served as a booster for the U.S. Mercury (q.v.) series and the Titan rocket modified for the U.S. Gemini (q.v.) program. Most launch vehicles used to lift heavier spacecraft consist of two or three rocket propulsion systems mounted one on top of the other. The Saturn V, which carried Apollo spacecraft to the Moon, was made up of three stages, the first two of which were equipped with a single engine. In such a system, the propellant tank and the vehicle structure in each stage are cast off as soon as the fuel is depleted, in order to lighten the load. The U.S. space shuttle (q.v.) system that became operational in 1981 represents a significant technical advance over traditional launch vehicles. Unlike the Saturn V, it can make more than one flight, since most of its principal components are designed to be recovered and refurbished for repeated use.

a rocket-powered vehicle used to transport a spacecraft beyond Earth’s atmosphere, either into orbit around Earth or to some other destination in outer space. Practical launch vehicles have been used to send manned spacecraft, unmanned space probes, and satellites into space since the 1950s. They include the Soyuz and Proton launchers of Russia, the Ariane series of Europe, and the space shuttle and Atlas, Delta, and Titan families of vehicles of the United States.

In order to reach Earth orbit, a launch vehicle must accelerate its spacecraft payload to a minimum velocity of 28,000 km (17,500 miles) per hour, which is roughly 25 times the speed of sound. To overcome Earth’s gravity for travel to a destination such as the Moon or Mars, the spacecraft must be accelerated to a velocity of approximately 40,000 km (25,000 miles) per hour. The initial acceleration must also be provided very rapidly in order to minimize both the time that a launch vehicle takes to transit the stressful environment of the atmosphere and the time during which the vehicle’s rocket engines and other systems must operate near their performance limits; a launch from Earth’s surface or atmosphere usually attains orbital velocity within 8–12 minutes. Such rapid acceleration requires one or more rocket engines burning large quantities of propellant at a high rate, while at the same time the vehicle is controlled so that it follows its planned trajectory. To maximize the mass of the spacecraft that a particular launch vehicle can carry, the vehicle’s structural weight is kept as low as possible. Most of the weight of the launch vehicle is actually its propellants—i.e., fuel and the oxidizer needed to burn the fuel. Designing reliable launch vehicles is challenging. The launchers with the best recent records have a reliability rate between 95 and 99 percent.

With the exception of the partially reusable U.S. space shuttle and the Soviet Buran vehicle (which was flown only once), all launch vehicles to date have been designed for only a single use; they are thus called expendable launch vehicles. With costs ranging from more than 10 million dollars each for the smaller launch vehicles used to put lighter payloads into orbit to hundreds of millions of dollars for the launchers needed for the heaviest payloads, access to space is very expensive, on the order of many thousands of dollars per kilogram taken to orbit. The complexity of the space shuttle has also made it extremely expensive to operate, even though portions of the shuttle system are reusable. Attempts to develop a fully reusable launch vehicle in order to reduce the cost of access to space have so far not been successful, primarily because the propulsion system and materials needed for successful development of such a vehicle have not been available.

Having both its own launch vehicles and a place to launch them are prerequisites if a particular country or group of countries wants to carry out an independent space program. To date, only seven entities—Russia, the United States, Japan, China, certain European countries through the European Space Agency, Israel, and India—have successfully developed and currently maintain their own space launch capability. Other countries aspiring to such capability include Brazil, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan, and Iran. Historically, many launch vehicles have been derived from ballistic missiles, and the link between new countries developing space launch capability and obtaining long-range military missiles is a continuing security concern.

Most launch vehicles have been developed through government funding, although some of those launch vehicles have been turned over to the private sector as a means of providing commercial space transportation services. Particularly in the United States, there have also been a number of entrepreneurial attempts to develop a privately funded launch vehicle. Although none of these attempts has yet been successful, several appear to be potentially viable.

Origins

Most space launch vehicles trace their heritage to ballistic missiles developed for military use during the 1950s and early ’60s. Those missiles in turn were based on the ideas first developed by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Russia, Robert Goddard in the United States, and Hermann Oberth in Germany. Each of these pioneers of space exploration recognized the centrality of developing successful launch vehicles if humanity were to gain access to outer space.

Tsiolkovsky late in the 19th century was the first to recognize the need for rockets to be constructed with separate stages if they were to achieve orbital velocity. Oberth’s classic 1923 book, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (“The Rocket into Interplanetary Space”), explained the mathematical theory of rocketry and applied the theory to rocket design. Oberth’s works also led to the creation of a number of rocket clubs in Germany, as enthusiasts tried to turn Oberth’s ideas into practical devices. Goddard was the first to build experimental liquid-fueled rockets; his first rocket, launched in Auburn, Mass., on March 16, 1926, rose 12.5 metres (41 feet) and traveled 56 metres (184 feet) from its launching place.

V-2

While Goddard spent 1930–41 in New Mexico working in isolation on increasingly sophisticated rocket experiments, a second generation of German, Soviet, and American rocket pioneers emerged during the 1930s. In particular, a team led by Wernher von Braun, working for the German army during the Nazi era, began development of what eventually became known as the V-2 rocket. Although built as a weapon of war, the V-2 later served as the predecessor of some of the launch vehicles used in the early space programs of the United States and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union.

Early U.S. launch vehicles

With the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, rocket research in the United States and the Soviet Union focused on the development of missiles for military use, including intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) capable of carrying nuclear warheads over distances of approximately 2,400 km (1,500 miles) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with transoceanic range. Braun and his team had been transported to the United States after the war, together with a number of captured V-2 rockets. These rockets were launched under army auspices to gain operational and technological experience. Braun’s team during the 1950s developed the Jupiter IRBM, which was in many ways a derivative of the V-2 rocket. A version of the Jupiter was the launch vehicle for the first U.S. artificial satellite, Explorer 1, launched on Jan. 31, 1958. Another V-2 derivative, called Redstone, was used to launch the first U.S. astronaut, Alan Shepard, on his May 5, 1961, suborbital flight.

Another line of development within the U.S. industry led in the early 1950s to the Navaho cruise missile. (A cruise missile flies like an unpiloted airplane to its target, rather than following the ballistic trajectory of an IRBM.) This program was short-lived, but the rocket engine developed for Navaho, which itself was derived from the V-2 engine, was in turn adapted for use in a number of first-generation ballistic missiles, including Thor, another IRBM, and Atlas and Titan, the first two U.S. ICBMs. A version of Atlas was used to launch John Glenn on the first U.S. orbital flight on Feb. 20, 1962, and Titan was adapted to be the launch vehicle for the two-person Gemini program in the mid-1960s.

After Pres. John F. Kennedy’s announcement in 1961 that sending Americans to the Moon would be a national goal, Braun and others in and outside of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) set about developing a launch vehicle that would enable a lunar mission based on rendezvous either in Earth or Moon orbit. The Braun team already had a less powerful rocket called Saturn I in development; their advanced design, intended for lunar missions, was configured to use five F-1 engines and on that basis was named Saturn V.

The Saturn V with the Apollo spacecraft on top stood 110.6 metres (363 feet) tall; its weight at the time of liftoff was over 3,000,000 kg (6,600,000 pounds). Its first stage provided 33,000 kilonewtons (7,500,000 pounds) of lifting power at takeoff. The second stage accelerated the rocket to 24,600 km (15,300 miles) per hour, or nearly orbital velocity. The third stage accelerated the spacecraft to a velocity of 39,400 km (24,500 miles) per hour, or over 10 km (6 miles) per second, sending the three Apollo crewmen toward the Moon. The Saturn V was used from 1968 to 1972 during the Apollo program and launched the Skylab space station in 1973.

The Saturn family of launch vehicles, which also included the Saturn IB, was the first American launch vehicle family developed specifically for space use. The less powerful Saturn IB was used to launch Apollo spacecraft on Earth-orbiting missions and during the U.S.-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. After Apollo-Soyuz, the Saturn family was retired from service as the United States decided to use the space shuttle as the sole launch vehicle for future government payloads.

Early Soviet launch vehicles

A similar pattern was followed in the Soviet Union. Under the direction of the rocket pioneer Sergey Korolyov, the Soviet Union during the 1950s developed an ICBM that was capable of delivering a heavy nuclear warhead to American targets. That ICBM, called the R-7 or Semyorka (“Number 7”), was first successfully tested on Aug. 21, 1957. Because Soviet nuclear warheads were based on a heavy design, the R-7 had significantly greater weight-lifting capability than did initial U.S. ICBMs. When used as a space launch vehicle, this gave the Soviet Union a significant early advantage in the weight that could be placed in orbit or sent to the Moon or nearby planets. There have been a number of variants of the R-7 with an upper stage, each with a different name, usually matching that of the payload, and each optimized to carry out specific missions. An unmodified R-7 was used to launch the first Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1, on Oct. 4, 1957, and an R-7 variant, the Vostok, launched the first Soviet cosmonauts, among them Yury Gagarin, who on April 12, 1961, became the first human to orbit Earth. Other variants include the Voshkod, used to launch reconnaissance satellites, and the Molniya, used to launch communication satellites. A multipurpose variant, the Soyuz, was first used in 1966 and, with many subsequent variants and improvements, is still in service. This family of launch vehicles has carried out more space launches than the rest of the world’s launch vehicles combined.

In the early 1960s, Soviet designers began work on the N1, which was originally designed to undertake journeys that would require true heavy-lift capability (that is, the ability to lift more than 80,000 kg [176,000 pounds] to low Earth orbit). When the Soviet Union in 1964 decided to race the United States to a first lunar landing, that became the sole mission for the N1. The N1 was a five-stage vehicle. The N1 vehicle and the L3 lunar landing spacecraft mounted atop it stood 105 metres (344 feet) tall and weighed 2,735,000 kg (6,000,000 pounds) fully fueled. To provide the 44,000 kilonewtons (10,000,000 pounds) of thrust needed to lift the vehicle off of its launchpad, 30 small rocket engines, firing in unison, were required.

There were four N1 launch attempts between February 1969 and November 1972. All failed, and on the second test launch, on July 3, 1969, the vehicle exploded on the launchpad, destroying it and causing a two-year delay in the program. In 1974 the N1 program was canceled.

In 1976 approval was given for development of the Energia heavy-lift launch vehicle (named for the design bureau that developed it) and its primary mission, the space shuttle Buran. Energia could lift 100,000 kg (220,000 pounds) to low Earth orbit, slightly more than the Saturn V. Takeoff thrust was 29,000 kilonewtons (6,600,000 pounds). The Energia was 60 metres (197 feet) high. Its spacecraft payload was attached to the side of its core stage, not placed on top as with almost all other launch vehicles.

Energia’s first launch was in 1987 and had Polyus, an experimental military space platform, as its payload. In 1988 its second and final launch carried Buran to orbit on its only mission, without a crew aboard. Energia was deemed too expensive for the Soviet Union to continue to operate, and no other uses for the vehicle emerged.

Sounding rockets

Another contributor to the development of space launch capability in the post-World War II period was work on sounding rockets, which are used to carry scientific instruments and other devices to heights above those that can be reached by high-altitude balloons but which do not have the power to accelerate their payloads to orbital velocities. Rather, sounding rockets provide several minutes of data-gathering time above the atmosphere for the instruments they carry; those instruments then fall back to Earth. Most countries that have developed space launch capability have first developed sounding rockets as, among other factors, a way of gaining experience with the technologies needed for launch vehicle development. Sounding rockets remain in use for some areas of scientific investigations that do not require the more expensive and technically demanding access to Earth orbit.

Launch vehicles of the world

There are many different expendable launch vehicles in use around the world today. As the two countries most active in space, the United States and Russia have developed a variety of launch vehicles, with each vehicle being best suited to a particular use. Other countries have fewer types of launch vehicles or only one type. See the table of major launch vehicles of the world.

United States

Most U.S. launch vehicles in use since the late 1950s have been based on the Thor IRBM (Thor became known as Thor-Delta and then simply Delta) or the Atlas and Titan ICBMs. The last launch of a vehicle based on the Titan ICBM was on Oct. 19, 2005. The two other families of launch vehicles, Delta and Atlas, have undergone a series of modifications and improvements since they were developed in the 1950s. The Delta II is used to launch small to medium payloads; its lifting power can be adjusted by varying the number of solid rocket motors attached as “strap-ons” to its first stage. The Delta IV and Atlas V vehicles, which both entered service in 2002, have little in common with the original ballistic missiles or early space launchers of the same names. The Delta IV uses the first new rocket engine developed in the United States since the 1970s space shuttle main engine; that engine, the RS-68, burns cryogenic propellant (liquefied gas kept at very low temperatures). The Delta IV has several configurations, depending on the weight and type of payload to be launched. Several configurations use solid rocket motors attached to the vehicle’s core first stage; the Delta IV model used to launch heavy spacecraft consists of three core stages strapped together. The Atlas V uses in its first stage a Russian-produced rocket engine, the RD-180, the design of which is based on the RD-170 developed for the Soviet Energia and Zenit launch vehicles. Like the Delta IV, the Atlas V offers several configurations. These two so-called evolved expendable launch vehicles are intended to be the workhorses for U.S. government launches for years to come.

The launch vehicles described above are used to carry medium-weight spacecraft into orbit or beyond. The Delta IV Heavy vehicle can launch payloads weighing from 6,275 kg (13,805 pounds) to geostationary orbit and can lift more than 23,000 kg (50,600 pounds) to low Earth orbit. Atlas V vehicles can launch payloads weighing up to 20,500 kg (45,100 pounds) to low Earth orbit and up to 3,750 kg (8,250 pounds) to geostationary orbit; a heavier lift version of the Atlas V is also possible. In addition, a number of smaller launch vehicles have been developed to launch lighter spacecraft at a lower overall cost (although not necessarily a lower cost per kilogram), though they have not found a wide market for their use. These include the solid-fueled Pegasus launch vehicle, which had its first flight in 1990 and is launched from under the fuselage of a carrier aircraft. First launched in 1994, a version of Pegasus known as Taurus lifts off from the ground, using a converted ICBM as a first stage and Pegasus as a second stage. A new small launch vehicle called Falcon was first tested in 2006. It was developed on the basis of private investment rather than being funded by government contracts and is intended to be the first in a new, lower-cost family of liquid-fueled expendable launch vehicles.

The U.S. space shuttle is unique in that it combines the functions of launch vehicle and spacecraft. The first partially reusable launch vehicle, it is one of the most complex machines ever developed, with more than 2.5 million parts. Its main elements are an orbiter, which houses a cockpit, a crew compartment, and a large payload bay and has three high-performance reusable rocket engines; a large external tank that contains the cryogenic liquid hydrogen fuel and the liquid oxygen oxidizer for those engines; and two large solid rocket motors, called boosters, attached to the external tank. These solid rocket motors provide 85 percent of the thrust needed for liftoff.

With the promise of partial reusability and routine operation, the shuttle was promoted when it was approved for development in 1972 as a means of providing regular access to space at a much lower cost than was possible with the use of expendable launch vehicles. The intent was to use the space shuttle as the only launch vehicle for all U.S. government spacecraft and to attract commercial spacecraft launch business in competition with other countries’ launchers. The promise of low cost and routine operations has not been realized; preparing the shuttle for each launch has proven to be an intensive and expensive process, and many of the shuttle orbiter’s elements have had to be replaced or refurbished more often than anticipated. Each shuttle launch has cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

The three space shuttle main engines and the two solid rocket motors are ignited at the time of liftoff; combined, they provide 31,000 kilonewtons (7,000,000 pounds) of thrust. The solid rocket motors burn for just over two minutes. They are then detached from the external tank and parachuted into the ocean, where their now empty casings are recovered for reuse. The three space shuttle main engines continue to fire for an additional six and a half minutes, at which point they shut down and the external tank is detached, falling into the atmosphere and disintegrating over the Indian Ocean. A final small firing of the space shuttle’s Orbital Maneuvering System engines, which use hypergolic propellant (fuel that ignites when it comes into contact with its oxidizer), places the orbiter into the desired orbit.

The height of the shuttle stack on the launchpad is 56.1 metres (184.2 feet), and the shuttle orbiter itself is 37.2 metres (122.2 feet) long. The shuttle’s fueled weight at liftoff is 2,000,000 kg (4,500,000 pounds). Unlike other launch vehicles that detach themselves from their spacecraft payload when orbital speed is achieved, the shuttle orbiter, which weighs approximately 104,000 kg (229,000 pounds) when empty, is carried into orbit along with whatever payload it is carrying, two to seven crew members and their supplies, and fuel for orbital maneuvering and reentry. It is thus the heaviest spacecraft ever launched. Maximum weight for cargo in the shuttle’s payload bay was planned to be 28,803 kg (63,367 pounds), but the vehicle has never carried such heavy payloads. The heaviest payload carried into space by the space shuttle was the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its upper stage, which weighed 22,753 kg (50,162 pounds) when the satellite was launched on the STS-93 mission on July 23, 1999.

Russia and Ukraine

Russia has the most diverse set of launch vehicles of any spacefaring country. Most were developed under the Soviet Union, which included both Russia and Ukraine, and both countries continue to produce launch vehicles. Like the United States, the Soviet Union used various ballistic missiles as the basis for several of its space launch vehicles. The approach taken was to use a version of the ballistic missile as a first stage and then add a variety of upper stages to modify the vehicle for different missions. The most famous of these ballistic missiles was the aforementioned R-7, developed in the 1950s under the direction of Sergey Korolyov. Other Soviet launchers based on ICBM first stages include the Kosmos and Tsyklon (which is built in Ukraine).

The Proton and Zenit launch vehicles were not derived from operational ICBMs, although the Proton was first conceived as a large ICBM and then was developed from the start for space use. Introduced in 1965, Proton was the first dedicated Soviet space launch vehicle and still remains in service as the largest Russian launch vehicle. It was never used as an ICBM. Its first stage, unique among Russian launch vehicles, uses hypergolic propellants. With various upper stages, the Proton has been used to launch spacecraft to geostationary orbit (an orbit with a 24-hour period that keeps a satellite above a specific point on Earth) and to destinations beyond Earth orbit and to launch elements of the Salyut and Mir space stations and of the International Space Station.

First launched in 1985, the Zenit launch vehicle was developed in Ukraine. The Zenit uses an RD-170 first-stage engine, considered to be one of the most efficient and reliable rocket engines ever made. It was used by the Soviet Union and is now used by Russia to launch both military payloads to low Earth orbit and communication satellites to geostationary orbit. It was also used as a strap-on booster for the two flights of the heavy-lift Energia launcher.

Several other Russian launch vehicles are derived from decommissioned ballistic missiles. These include Start, Rokot, Dnepr, and the submarine-launched Shtil.

Europe

Several European countries, with France playing a leading role, decided in 1973 that it was essential for Europe to have its own access to space, independent of the United States and the Soviet Union. To develop a new launcher, these countries formed a new space organization, the European Space Agency (ESA), which in turn delegated lead responsibility of what was named the Ariane launch vehicle to the French space agency. The first Ariane was launched in December 1979. There were four generations of this initial booster design, Ariane 1–4. The Ariane family of launch vehicles does not draw directly on ballistic missile technology. The evolution of the family came through modifications or additions of the core stages and addition of strap-on solid rocket motors to increase lifting capacity. Ariane 4 proved a very reliable launcher before it was retired from service in 2003; while it launched differing spacecraft to a variety of orbits, its main mission was placing communications satellites into geostationary orbit.

Europe began developing the Ariane 5 launch vehicle in 1985. Its initial primary mission was to launch a crew-carrying space glider called Hermes; to do this, Ariane 5 had to be more powerful than its predecessors. Unlike Ariane 1–4, which used first-stage engines fueled by kerosene and liquid oxygen, Ariane 5 has a single engine fueled by liquid hydrogen, with two large strap-on solid rocket motors. The first launch of Ariane 5, in 1996, was a failure. For its first six years in operation, there was a mixed history of mainly successes but also several failures. Since 2003 Ariane 5 has not had any failures. Ariane 5 has been upgraded to increase its lifting capacity and reliability, and the intent of the ESA is to use Ariane 5 well into the future as its principal launch vehicle. A commercially oriented company, Arianespace, was created in 1980 to manage Ariane marketing, production, and launch operations.

In order to complement Ariane 5, the ESA in 2000 decided to develop a small launch vehicle called Vega. The first launch for this vehicle eventually was set for 2009. In 2003 the ESA also decided to build a launch facility for the Russian Soyuz launcher at the European launch site in French Guiana. This would give Europe a medium-lift launch vehicle capability and could also provide Europe with the capability to launch humans into space, since that is one of the roles that the Soyuz launcher plays for Russia.

China

Like the United States and the Soviet Union, China’s first launch vehicles were also based on ballistic missiles. The Chang Zheng 1 (CZ-1, or Long March 1) vehicle, which put China’s first satellite into orbit in 1970, was based on the Dong Feng 3 IRBM, and the Chang Zheng 2 family of launch vehicles, which has been used for roughly half of Chinese launches, was based on the Dong Feng 5 ICBM. There are several models of the CZ-2 vehicle, with different first stages and solid strap-ons; a CZ-2F vehicle was used to launch the first Chinese astronaut into space in October 2003. There are also CZ-3 and CZ-4 launchers. The CZ-3 is optimized for launches to geostationary orbits, and the CZ-4, first launched in 1988, uses hypergolic propellants rather than the conventional kerosene–liquid oxygen combination used in previous Chang Zheng variants. China has begun development of a second-generation family of launchers, identified as CZ-5, or Long March 5, that are not based on an ICBM design; these vehicles can launch payloads to geostationary orbit that are more than five times heavier than those carried by the CZ-4.

Japan

Until 2003 Japan had three separate space agencies, two of which developed their own line of launch vehicles. Japan did not have a previous ballistic missile program.

Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences based its launch vehicles on the use of solid propellants. Its Lambda L-4S vehicle sent the first Japanese satellite, Osumi, into orbit in 1970. Each subsequent launcher in the Mu series gave the institute greater lifting power for its scientific satellites, with the M-5 vehicle, first launched in 1997, capable of sending spacecraft beyond Earth orbit.

During the 1970s the National Space Development Agency developed the N-I and N-II launchers based on licensed U.S. Delta technology. As an interim step to its own launch vehicle, in the 1980s the agency next developed the H-I, which had a Delta-derived first stage but a Japanese-designed cryogenically fueled upper stage. In 1984 Japan decided to develop an all-Japanese launch vehicle, the H-II, using cryogenic propellants in both stages and a very advanced first-stage rocket engine. The H-II was first launched in 1994; it proved a very expensive vehicle because of its total dependence on Japanese-manufactured components. Thus, Japan decided in 1996 to develop an H-IIA vehicle that would use some foreign components and simplified manufacturing techniques to reduce the vehicle’s costs. There are several models of the H-IIA, with both solid rocket motors and liquid-fueled strap-ons possible. The first H-IIA launch took place in August 2001.

India

India launched its first satellite in 1980 using the four-stage solid-fueled Satellite Launch Vehicle 3 (SLV-3), which was developed from the U.S. Scout launch vehicle first used in the 1960s. India did not have a prior ballistic missile program, but parts of the SLV-3 were later incorporated into India’s first IRBM, Agni. The four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) was then developed; it used a mixture of solid- and liquid-fueled stages. The first PSLV launch took place in 1993. During the 1990s India developed the liquid-fueled Geostationary Space Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which used cryogenic fuel in its upper stage. The GSLV was first launched in 2001. Both the PSLV and GSLV remain in service.

Israel

Israel’s Shavit launch vehicle is a small three-stage solid-fueled vehicle, first launched in 1988. It was based on the Jericho 2 ballistic missile. Because of its geographic location and hostile relations with surrounding countries, Israel must launch its vehicles to the west, over the Mediterranean Sea, in order to avoid flying over those countries. This necessity imposes a penalty of 30 percent on the Shavit’s lifting capability, since the Shavit is unable to take advantage of the velocity imparted by Earth’s rotation.

How a launch vehicle works

A launch vehicle is a good illustration of Newton’s third law of motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” (For a detailed explanation, see rocket.) In the case of a launch vehicle, the “action” is the flow out the rear of the vehicle of exhaust gases produced by the combustion of the vehicle’s fuel in its rocket engine, and the “reaction” is the pressure, called thrust, applied to the internal structure of the launch vehicle that pushes it in the direction opposite to the exhaust flow. Unlike jet engines, which operate on the same action-reaction principle but obtain the oxygen needed for burning their fuel from the atmosphere, rockets carry with them their own oxidizing agent. In that way, they can operate in the vacuum beyond the atmosphere.

The primary goal of launch vehicle designers is to maximize the vehicle’s weight-lifting capability while at the same time providing an adequate level of reliability at an acceptable cost. Achieving a balance among these three factors is challenging. In order for the launch vehicle to lift off of Earth, its upward thrust must be greater than the combined weight of its spacecraft payload, the vehicle’s propellants, and its structure. This puts a premium on making the vehicle’s mechanical structure, fuel tanks, and rocket engines as light as possible but strong enough to withstand the forces and stresses associated with rapid acceleration through a resistant atmosphere. Most often, propellant makes up 80 percent or more of the total weight of a launch vehicle–spacecraft combination prior to launch.

Stages

A basic approach to launch vehicle design, first suggested by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, is to divide the vehicle into “stages.” The first stage is the heaviest part of the vehicle and has the largest rocket engines, the largest fuel and oxidizer tanks, and the highest thrust; its task is to impart the initial thrust needed to overcome Earth’s gravity and thus to lift the total weight of the vehicle and its payload off of Earth. When the first-stage propellants are used up, that stage is detached from the remaining parts of the launch vehicle and falls back to Earth, either into the ocean or onto sparsely populated territory. With the weight of the first stage gone, a second stage, with its own rocket engines and propellants, continues to accelerate the vehicle. Most expendable launch vehicles in use today have only two or three stages, but in the past up to five stages, each lighter than its predecessor, were needed to attain orbital velocity. When an upper stage has completed its mission, it either falls back to Earth’s surface, enters orbit itself, or, most frequently, disintegrates and evaporates as it encounters atmospheric heating on its fall back toward Earth.

A particular launch vehicle can be configured in several different ways, depending on its mission and the weight of the spacecraft to be launched. This reconfiguration can be done by adding a varying number of strap-on boosters, usually solid rocket motors, to the vehicle’s first stage or by using different upper stages.

In principle, a space launcher could reach Earth orbit using only one stage, and in fact there have been several attempts to develop a reusable “single stage to orbit” vehicle. All attempts have failed, however; the propulsion and materials technologies needed to make a single-stage vehicle light and powerful enough to achieve orbital velocity while carrying a meaningful payload have not been developed.

Upper stages

All launch vehicles employ more than one stage to accelerate spacecraft to orbital velocity. Since the first orbital launch (Sputnik), in 1957, there have been many different upper stages. Most are used as part of only one type of launch vehicle. The evolution of these upper stages is driven by a desire to introduce more modern technology that will increase the overall lift capability of the launch vehicle, lower its costs, and increase its reliability—or a combination of these factors. Small improvements in upper stages can produce significant gains in launch vehicle performance, since these stages operate only after the first stage has accelerated the vehicle to a high speed through the thickest parts of the atmosphere.

Several upper stages have been used with more than one family of launch vehicle. For example, the Agena upper stage was first developed in the United States as part of its initial reconnaissance satellite program. The Agena upper stage of a Thor-Agena launch vehicle propelled the Corona spacecraft into orbit, stayed attached to it, and provided power and pointing for the spacecraft’s operation. Agena used hypergolic propellant; it was also combined with the Atlas and Titan first stages on a number of subsequent missions. Later versions of Agena were able to restart their engine in orbit, carried other national security payloads, sent Ranger and Lunar Orbiter spacecraft to the Moon and Mariner spacecraft to Venus and Mars, and served as the target vehicle for rendezvous by the Gemini two-man spacecraft. Use of the Agena upper stage extended through the mid-1980s.

Another U.S. upper stage, used with the Atlas and Titan launch vehicles, is Centaur. This was the first U.S. rocket stage to employ cryogenic propellant. The first use of the Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle was to send Surveyor spacecraft to the Moon in 1966 and 1967; it flew many subsequent missions atop an Atlas first stage. When combined with powerful versions of the Titan launch vehicle, Centaur also has been used to send various spacecraft to Mars and the outer planets and to launch various heavy national security payloads.

Various upper stages using solid propellants were used to carry payloads from the space shuttle’s low Earth orbit to higher orbits. There were plans to carry the liquid-fueled Centaur on the shuttle to launch planetary spacecraft, but those plans were canceled after the 1986 Challenger accident because of safety concerns. Solid-propellant upper stages have also been used with the Delta and Titan launch vehicles.

Soviet and Russian launch vehicles have used a variety of upper stages; most have used conventional kerosene as fuel. More recently two upper stages, the Block DM using cryogenic propellant and the more popular Briz M using hypergolic propellant, have been developed for the Proton launcher. There has been a constant evolution of upper stages used with the Soyuz launcher; in 1999 upper stages with restartable rocket engines entered service.

The ESA used a cryogenic upper stage for its Ariane 1–4 launchers. Initial versions of the Ariane 5 used hypergolic propellant in its upper stage, though a new cryogenic upper stage was introduced in 2006. Japan and India use cryogenic propellants in the upper stages of their most powerful launch vehicles, the H-IIA and the GSLV, respectively.

Fuel

The fuel used to power rockets can be divided into two broad categories: liquid and solid. Liquid fuels can range from a widely available substance such as ordinary kerosene, which can be used at ground temperature, to liquid hydrogen, which must be maintained at the extremely low temperature of 20 °K (−253 °C, or −423 °F). Liquid hydrogen is called a cryogenic fuel. Another type of liquid fuel, called hypergolic, ignites spontaneously on contact with an oxidizer; such fuels are usually some form of hydrazine. Hypergolic fuels are extremely toxic and thus difficult to handle. However, because of their reliable ignition and their ability to be restarted, they are used in the first or second stages of some rockets and in other applications such as orbital maneuvering motors. During the Apollo program they were used to lift the crew compartment of the lunar module off of the Moon’s surface.

In order to burn, liquid rocket fuel must be mixed in the combustion chamber of a rocket engine with an oxygen-rich substance, called an oxidizer. The oxidizer usually used with both kerosene and liquid hydrogen is liquid oxygen. Oxygen must be kept at a temperature less than −183 °C (−298 °F) in order to remain in a liquid state. The oxidizer used with hypergolic fuel is usually nitrogen tetroxide or nitric acid. Like hypergolic fuel, the oxidizers are extremely toxic substances and so are difficult to handle.

Liquid-fuel rocket engines are complex machines. In order to reach maximum efficiency, both fuel and oxidizer must be pumped into the engine’s combustion chamber at high rates, under high pressure, and in suitable mixtures. The fuel pumps are driven by a turbine powered by the burning of a small proportion of the fuel. There are various approaches to powering the turbomachinery of a rocket engine, but all require high-performance mechanisms and are one of the major potential sources of launch vehicle failure. After combustion, the resulting exhaust gas exits through a nozzle with a shape that accelerates it to a high velocity.

Solid-propellant rocket motors are simple in design, in many ways resembling large fireworks. They consist of a casing filled with a rubbery mixture of solid compounds (both fuel and oxidizer) that burn at a rapid rate after ignition. The fuel is usually some organic material or powdered aluminum; the oxidizer is most often ammonium perchlorate. These are mixed together and are cured with a binder to form the rocket propellant. Solid rocket motors are most often used as strap-ons to the liquid-fueled first stage of a launch vehicle to provide additional thrust during liftoff and the first few minutes of flight. (However, the United States has begun development of a new launch vehicle named Ares-1 that will use a large solid rocket motor as its first stage.) Unlike some rocket engines using liquid fuels, which can be turned off after ignition, solid rocket motors once ignited burn their fuel until it is exhausted. The exhaust from the burning of the fuel emerges through a nozzle at the bottom of the rocket casing, and that nozzle shapes and accelerates the exhaust to provide the reactive forward thrust.

Payload protection

The spacecraft that a launch vehicle carries into space is almost always attached to the top of the vehicle. During the transit of the atmosphere, the payload is protected by some sort of fairing, often made of lightweight composite material. Once the launch vehicle is beyond the densest part of the atmosphere, this fairing is shed. After the spacecraft reaches initial orbital velocity, it may be detached from the launch vehicle’s final upper stage to begin its mission. Alternatively, if the spacecraft is intended to be placed in other than a low Earth orbit, the upper-stage rocket engine may be shut down for a period of time as the spacecraft payload coasts in orbit. Then the engine is restarted to impart the additional velocity needed to move the payload to a higher Earth orbit or to inject it into a trajectory that will carry it deeper into space.

Navigation, guidance, and control

In order for a launch vehicle to place a spacecraft in the intended orbit, it must have navigation, guidance, and control capabilities. Navigation is needed to determine the vehicle’s position, velocity, and orientation at any point in its trajectory. As these variables are measured, the vehicle’s guidance system determines what course corrections are needed to steer the vehicle to its desired target. Control systems are used to implement the guidance commands through movements of the vehicle’s rocket engines or changes in the direction of the vehicle’s thrust. Navigation, guidance, and control for most launch vehicles are achieved by a combination of complex software, computers, and other hardware devices.

Reliability

A launch vehicle thus comprises one or more rocket engines; fuel for those engines carried in fuel tanks; guidance, navigation, and control systems; a payload; and a structure housing all of these elements, to which extra engines may be attached for added lift. There are also various attachments between the launch vehicle and its launchpad and associated structures. An expendable launch vehicle has only one opportunity to perform its mission successfully, so all of its elements must be designed and manufactured precisely and for very high operational reliability. Also, as noted above, launch vehicles are designed to be as light as possible, in order to maximize their payload lifting capability. As a result, every part in a launch vehicle operates close to its breaking point during a launch, as the vehicle undergoes the stresses associated with accelerating past the speed of sound and transiting the atmosphere and as its rocket engines operate under extremes of pressure, temperature, shock, and vibration.

The end result is that launching a spacecraft into outer space remains an extremely difficult undertaking and that launch failures are a fact of life for those seeking access to space. Many space launches, particularly those carrying commercial spacecraft, are insured against failure, since they often represent an investment of more than a hundred million dollars.

Launch vehicles that carry people into space are “human rated.” This means that they use components of the highest possible reliability, have redundancy in critical systems, undergo more testing prior to launch than does a launch vehicle carrying an automated spacecraft, and contain systems that warn of impending problems so that a crew might be able to escape an accident. There has been only one failure of a launch vehicle at liftoff that resulted in crew fatalities; this was the explosion of the Challenger, on Jan. 28, 1986, which killed all seven astronauts aboard.

Launching into outer space

Although they differ in many details for various vehicles and at different launch bases, the steps needed to prepare a launch vehicle and its spacecraft payload for launch are, in general, similar.

Most often, the different stages and other elements of a launch vehicle are manufactured separately and transported to the launch base for assembly. That assembly can take place either in a facility away from the launchpad or on the launchpad itself. The advantage of a separate assembly building is that many of the steps needed to prepare the vehicle for launch, including assembly and then checkout of the integrated vehicle, can be performed in a closed environment. This also means that the launchpad is available for other uses during the assembly and checkout period.

Launch vehicle assembly and checkout are carried out either vertically or horizontally. Vertical assembly requires a facility tall enough to shelter the whole vehicle and spacecraft. The various components are “stacked,” starting with the first stage and often ending with the attachment of the spacecraft to the launch vehicle. (Sometimes the spacecraft and the launch vehicle are mated only at the launchpad.) Strap-on solid rocket engines, if they are to be used, are attached to the core first stage. Horizontal assembly is carried out on an end-to-end basis and does not require a high building with vehicle access at multiple levels. After assembly, as much testing as possible is conducted on the integrated vehicle to check its readiness for launch before it is transported to the launchpad.

Once it reaches the launchpad, the vehicle is attached to a launch tower, which contains the various umbilical connections and access points needed to complete the checkout process and to monitor the vehicle’s final readiness for launch. If the vehicle has been assembled horizontally, it must be raised into a vertical position as it reaches the launchpad. Often the launchpad includes some sort of shelter to protect the launch vehicle and spacecraft from the elements until close to the time for launch and to allow technicians to continue the checkout process. The launch vehicle is held on the pad by some form of attachment device.

If the launch vehicle is assembled on the launchpad, all of the above steps are conducted there. Assembly and checkout can take several months, and during this period the launchpad cannot be used for other purposes.

As the time for launch approaches, a countdown is initiated. Countdown time can range from hours to days. During the countdown, various final steps are carried out at specific times to make the vehicle ready for launch. If the vehicle uses liquid propellants, they are loaded in the hours before launch, after being stored in tanks near the launchpad. Cryogenic propellants are difficult to maintain in a liquid state; they tend to become gaseous and “boil off” of the vehicle. Therefore, they are loaded into the vehicle’s fuel tanks as close to the time of launch as possible and must be constantly topped off to ensure that the fuel and oxidizer tanks are full. Some hours before a scheduled launch, the structure that has been protecting the vehicle is rotated away from it and the launch tower.

Launch bases must have access to up-to-date weather information. There are usually preset rules with respect to what weather conditions are acceptable for a space launch, including winds at the launch site and aloft, visibility (for monitoring the vehicle during the first few minutes of flight), and temperature. These conditions vary among launch sites and for different launch vehicles. For example, manned spacecraft are launched from Russian sites during much more severe weather conditions than those deemed acceptable for the launch of a U.S. space shuttle from its Florida launch base.

In the last few minutes of the countdown, a final check is made to ensure that the vehicle and spacecraft are ready for launch and that all other conditions are in a “go” status. All umbilical connections between the launch tower and the vehicle are detached. Liquid-fueled rocket engines are usually allowed to fire for a few seconds before the vehicle is committed to launch; a rapid computer check is performed, and the engines can be shut down if there are any indications of a problem. Once solid rocket engines are ignited, the vehicle is committed to launch. When the moment of launch arrives, the devices holding the vehicle to the launchpad are explosively detached, and the vehicle begins its liftoff.

Launchpads have trenches for channeling exhaust flames away from the vehicle, and frequently large volumes of water are injected into the flames. This is done to minimize damage to vehicle and launchpad from the heat and sonic vibrations associated with liftoff.

Associated with each launch base is a launch range with facilities for tracking and closely monitoring the launch vehicle through all stages of its mission. A range safety officer makes sure that no aspects of the vehicle’s performance could pose a threat to public safety or destroy property. If such a condition arose, the officer would be able to command the launch vehicle to destroy itself.

Launch bases

Most launch vehicles take off from sites on land, although a few are air- or sea-launched. To function as a launch base, a particular location has to have facilities for assembling the launch vehicle, handling its fuel, preparing a spacecraft for launch, mating the spacecraft and launch vehicle, and checking them out for launch readiness. In addition, it must have launchpads and the capability to monitor the launch after liftoff and ensure safety in the launch range. This usually requires a significant amount of land located away from heavily populated areas but with good air, sea, rail, or land access for transport of various components. Other desirable characteristics include a location that allows the early stages of launch, when first stages are separated and most launch accidents happen, to take place over water or sparsely populated land areas.

Another desirable characteristic is a location as near as possible to the Equator. Many launches take place in an eastward direction to take advantage of the velocity imparted by the rotation of Earth in that direction. This velocity is greatest at the Equator and decreases with increased latitude. For example, the additional velocity provided by Earth’s rotation is 463 metres per second (1,037 miles per hour) at the European launch base in French Guiana, which is located very close to the Equator at latitude 5.2° N. It is 410 metres per second (918 miles per hour) at the U.S. launch site at Cape Canaveral, Fla., located at latitude 28° N, and it is only 328 metres per second (735 miles per hour) at the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which is located at latitude 46° N. Earth’s naturally imparted velocity, though small in comparison with the velocity provided by the rocket engines, lessens the demands on the launch vehicle.

Many satellites are intended to be placed in a geostationary orbit. Geostationary orbit is located 35,785 km (22,236 miles) above the Equator. Spacecraft launched from a base near the Equator require less maneuvering, and therefore use less fuel, to reach this orbit than do spacecraft launched from higher latitudes. Fuel saving translates into either a lighter spacecraft or additional fuel that can be used to extend the operating life of the satellite.

The benefits of an equatorial location do not apply to launches into a polar or near-polar orbit, since there is no added velocity from Earth’s rotation for launches in a northward or southward direction. Launch bases used for polar orbits do need to have a clear path over water or empty land for the early stages of a launch.

Space launches have taken place at more than 25 different land-based locations around the globe, though not all of these bases are in operation at any one time. Most are government-operated facilities. There have been a number of proposals to build commercially operated launch bases at various locations around the globe, and several such bases in the United States have begun operation.

Not all space launches lift off from land. In particular, the U.S.-Russian-Norwegian-Ukrainian commercial launch firm Sea Launch uses the innovative approach of a mobile launch platform, based on a converted offshore oil-drilling rig, which is towed by a command ship from its home base in Long Beach, Calif., to a near-equatorial location in the Pacific Ocean. Once the platform reaches the desired location, the firm’s Ukrainian Zenit launch vehicle is transferred along with its communications satellite payload from the command ship to the launch platform, checked out, and launched to geostationary orbit. This approach gives Sea Launch the advantages associated with an equatorial launch site without the need for a permanent installation in an equatorial country.

Other spacecraft have been launched with the Shtil launch vehicle from a converted Russian submarine and with Pegasus from under the wings of an airplane owned by the U.S. firm Orbital Sciences Corporation. Only relatively small launch vehicles carrying light spacecraft can be launched in this manner. The advantages of an air-based launch are the flexibility in the launch location and the use of a carrier aircraft to lift the launch vehicle the first 12,000 metres (40,000 feet) above Earth, thus reducing the propulsion requirements needed to reach orbit.

Commercial launch industry

Until the early 1980s, all launches into space were carried out under government auspices, even those launches intended to place commercially owned and operated communications satellites into geostationary orbit. With the growth of the commercial communications satellite industry around the world, there was a market opportunity to provide launch services on a commercial basis, since those wanting to launch communications satellites were willing to pay many millions of dollars to do so.

First to take advantage of this opportunity was Europe, which formed the Arianespace Corporation to market Ariane launches to commercial customers. Arianespace was a mixed public-private corporation with close ties to the French government; the French space agency was a major shareholder.

Once the space shuttle had been declared operational in 1982 after its first four flights, the United States pursued a contradictory policy. The U.S. government offered to turn over ownership and operation of existing expendable launch vehicles such as Delta, Atlas, and Titan to the private sector for commercial use; at the same time, it pursued an aggressive policy of marketing the space shuttle as a commercial launcher. The private sector could not compete with this government activity. After the 1986 Challenger accident, the space shuttle was prohibited from launching commercial spacecraft. This provided a renewed opportunity for the manufacturers of the Delta, Atlas, and Titan vehicles to seek commercial customers in competition with Arianespace, and they took advantage of that opportunity. After a few years, the Titan was removed from this competition because it had failed to attract many commercial users. Evolved versions of Atlas and Delta continue in commercial service.

In 1983 the Soviet Union began to seek commercial customers through a marketing organization called Glavkosmos. China followed in 1985; its Chang Zheng family of launchers was marketed by the China Great Wall Industry Corporation. Soviet and Chinese entry into the commercial launch market was slowed by quotas imposed by the United States, which argued that Russian and Chinese launchers had an unfair price advantage because of the nonmarket nature of their countries’ economies. Japan also planned to market its H-II launch vehicle on a commercial basis but was hindered by the H-II being much more expensive than competing launch vehicles. However, the H-IIA was more successful and less expensive, and Japan has marketed it as a commercial launcher. India had its first commercial launch in April 2007.

In addition to commercial launch services marketed by entities in a particular country, several transnational launch service providers have emerged. International Launch Services is jointly owned by the British Virgin Islands firm Space Transport, the Russian Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Centre, and the Russian firm RSC Energia and markets both the Atlas and Proton launch vehicles. Starsem is a joint venture of European and Russian companies and the Russian Federal Space Agency to market the Soyuz launcher. Sea Launch is an alliance of U.S., Ukrainian, and Russian aerospace companies and a Norwegian offshore oil drilling and shipbuilding company to market the Zenit launch vehicle.

In the mid-1990s the rapid growth in the geostationary communications satellite industry and plans to launch several multisatellite constellations in low Earth orbit created a sense of optimism that the commercial space launch market would grow rapidly. However, none of the satellite constellations was an economic success, and the demand for communications via satellite leveled off by the turn of the century. This led to an oversupply of launch services. In 1997 there were 23 commercial launches worldwide, but by 2003 the number of launches had declined to 12. That same year the commercial space launch industry had the capacity to carry out almost 60 launches. Though the launch industry rebounded somewhat afterward (in 2006 there were 21 commercial launches), demand still lags behind supply.

The quest for reusability

An important limiting factor in the use of space is the high cost of launching spacecraft. In particular, using an expendable launch vehicle involves the single use of a vehicle that costs approximately as much as a jet transport. Since the start of spaceflight, there has been a hope that it might be possible to avoid such high costs by making space launch vehicles reusable for multiple launches. The original plans for the space shuttle called for it to be a two-stage, fully reusable vehicle. Unfortunately, both technological barriers and financial constraints made it impossible to pursue those plans, and the space shuttle is in fact only partially reusable. Indeed, a space shuttle launch is even more expensive than the launch of an expendable vehicle. The United States has made several subsequent attempts to develop a fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle (that is, one that can fly directly to orbit without shedding any of its parts). Among these attempts were the National Aerospace Plane project (1986–93) and the X-33 project (1995–2001). Both programs were canceled before any flights were attempted. In both cases, neither the materials needed to construct the vehicle nor a rocket engine to propel it proved to be at a stage of adequate technological maturity.

In the United States a number of entrepreneurial firms have also investigated various approaches to lower the cost of space access, with an emphasis on reusability. These approaches have included using a variation of the rocket engine used on the Soviet N1 lunar launch vehicle and parachuting spent rocket stages and their engines back to Earth for reuse and using technologically advanced rocket engines and materials to construct a totally new vehicle design. None of these efforts have been technically successful, and all have struggled to attract the investments needed for them to proceed. In 2002 the American firm Space Exploration Technologies began efforts to develop a low-cost expendable launch vehicle, Falcon, using primarily proven technology.

Beyond rockets

It is difficult to find alternatives to chemically fueled rocket propulsion for lifting mass out of Earth’s gravity well. One concept, originally advanced by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1895, is a “space elevator”—an extremely strong cable extending from Earth’s surface to the height of geostationary orbit or beyond. The competing forces of gravity at the lower end and outward centripetal acceleration at the farther end would keep the cable under tension and stationary over a single position on Earth. It would then be possible to attach a payload to this cable on Earth and lift it by mechanical means to an orbital height. When released at that point, it would have the velocity to remain in orbit or to use an additional in-space propulsion system to send it to deep-space destinations. This concept, far-fetched as it may seem, has been the subject of serious preliminary research.

Another Earth-to-space transportation concept is called a mass driver. A mass driver is an electromagnetic accelerator, probably miles in length, that would use pulsed magnetic fields to accelerate payloads to orbital or near-orbital velocity. The advantage of a mass driver is that the accelerating device and its source of energy remain on Earth for reuse, rather than accompanying a spacecraft into space. The mass driver concept was given the most attention during the 1970s and ’80s by American physicist Gerard O’Neill and his colleagues as part of his proposal to build large orbital space colonies. Mass drivers have also been considered as a means of launching material from the lunar surface.

Good overviews of launch vehicles can be found in Fernand Verger et al., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Space: Missions, Applications, and Exploration (2003); the most recent edition of Jane’s Space Directory; Steven J. Isakowitz, International Reference Guide to Space Launch Systems, 4th ed. (2004); and Michael Lennick, Launch Vehicles: Heritage of the Space Race (2006). The evolution of U.S. launch vehicles is traced in Roger D. Launius and Dennis R. Jenkins, To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles (2002). Frank H. Winter, Rockets into Space (1990), provides an account of the early development of rocketry.